The Creative Assembly Making Games Workshop Games

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EDIT: THQ tell Eurogamer that they still hold 40K rights, so Creative Assembly are taking the Fantasy road. Skaven: Total Warhammer!

The distant rumble on the horizon is the sound of gathering forces. Specifically The Creative Assembly and the Games Workshop. Sega has just announced that the former has set up a special development team to work on the latter’s IP. This is like Everest climbing K2.
We don’t know what to expect from this, but I presume something involving huge battles betwixt Orc and Man won’t be far off. There’s no reason to get CA involved if it’s not vistas filled with gore and drama.

Tim Heaton, Studio Director at Creative Assembly, talked a bit about the deal: “We’ll be doing the Warhammer universe justice in a way that has never been attempted before. We’re bringing those 25 years of experience and expertise in extremely high-scoring games to bear, delivering a Warhammer experience that videogamers will absolutely love.”

Cor. That’s some rather large news for British games development. Sega’s strategy studio are already busy bunnies, working on five projects: there’s this, Aliens, Total War, and two apparently unannounced games as well.

It’s not yet clear whether the deal involves grim future warhammers as well as those of the fantasy elf-bashing variety. Eurogamer, seeking to verify whether struggling THQ are now 40K-less received a quote from Sega specifying a focus on the “Warhammer universe of fantasy battles”. It would seem odd for the license to split two ways (edit: or not, as the case may be) but we can’t be 100% certain that this is Dawn of War’s dusk and the actual cancellation of Dark Millennium. Time – and a carefully worded press release – will no doubt tell.

Whatever the case, Creative Assembly’s first Warhammer game won’t be arriving until “after 2013”.

uptil I saw the paycheck 4 $7666, I accept …that…my friend woz like realey taking home money in there spare time from there pretty old laptop.. there friend brother haz done this 4 only about seven months and resantly repaid the mortgage on their cottage and bourt a top of the range Citroën DS. we looked here..Read More

@frightlever
In DOW2 there essentially wasn’t any base building, everything was recruited from a single HQ structure and all there was to build were turrets/webgates/waaagh banners for area control.

If you haven’t played it, you should think about giving it a shot, I still love that game. Multiplayer was getting a bit quiet, but all the recent sales and bundles might have given it a bit of a boost, I’ll have to check.

I far prefer dow2 also, and this news is glorious i really do hope for a total war style world with all the races and map of the world in there …. i don’t play wfb (more a 40k guy) but I’ve long wanted to command a tomb kings force at a vast scale!

wouldn’t it be cool if an entire skaven army could emerge on a battle map from underground. Or, or, or, from under a city full of civilians with only a few ill-prepared militia amongst them. Or, or, or (continues in this vein for about twenty minutes).

A bit like in Shadow of the Horned Rat, you mean? I recommend giving it a go, though it may require some tweaking. Dark Omen is also well worth trying (it’s better, really), though I can’t get it to install off my CD at all, and haven’t the foggiest where else to get it.

Edit: Actually, the more I think about it…. If you could unlock 3D model trophies as achievement rewards like in Batman: Arkham City, but they are without color. But there is a built in color-tool so you could paint them and display them to others via Steam Community, Facebook (don’t shoot me) or similar, that would be an awesome selling point to old Warhammer fans.

Not saying your point is without merit, but the big difference between Bloodbowl & WHFB/WH40K is that the the former is no longer supported with miniatures or sold rules and the latter two are. If you craft a Video game version of the main tabletop games that provides every aspect of the ‘hobby’ bar the physical miniatures, you are going to cut into your revenue stream, particularly given the insane entry price-point GW games have on them these days.

Mechanics are totally different though. I stopped playing-still collect, but don’t play-ages ago becuase it was all about stats and mechanics and such in my experience, whereas the genius of GW universe is in their narrative and chracter, not the ability to beat someone over the head with a superior grasp of hobby legisaltion. I suspect a lot of people get drawn in by the history and lore, but in order to stick around as part of the community usually means you’re down with labyrinthine, in-elegant hobby systems as well.

Well that’s nonsense, they are the colour you want to paint them. You don’t see their faces anyway because they are wearing helmets… and in the lore their gene enhanced pigmentation changes in response to climate. In novels it doesn’t generally to keep things easier to read – however there are lots of black and female characters of note. Also different chapters did have different skin tones – salamanders are a dark black colour, thousand sons were a red/brown skintone (based on egyptians) etc.

Similarly females can’t become space marines (adeptus astartes) but they have their own order of enhanced power armour wearing warriors called the sisters of battle (adeptus sororitas).

Is it racist if it’s aliens? Well, I suppose it is. They’re different races after all.

WH40K humans are super xenophobic and the fluff portrays a highly questionable society but I don’t really know if the setting as a whole is sexist. I guess it’s true in the sense that there are as a whole more men than women in it, but in the books I’ve read (chiefly the Gaunt books and Ravenor and Eisenhorn) women seemed to play prominent roles in many of them, at least from Necropolis and onwards in the Gaunt series and throughout in the others. And the Imperial Guard doesn’t really care about the gender of the meat for the grinder. Other authors might be worse though.

That said, I’d like a deeper discussion of those subjects. Always interesting.

Eldar do not divide role by gender. Men can be Howling Banshee’s, and women be striking scorpions. They abandon their identity (and their gender) when they don their aspect armor, and become that aspect.

Tau do not divide by gender, but they do have a caste/eugenics social system. Mating pairs are decided by the Ethereal caste. Your role is decided by your birth.

Sisters of Battle are all women to legalese around a rule that the Ecclesiarchy cannot have MEN at arms.

No female Space Marines because of genetic and hormonal reasons. There can however, be female serfs.

Imperial Guard regiments can be all male, all female, or mixed, depending on the culture they come from (Imperial Culture being far from uniform).

Orks don’t have gender or sex, just waaagh.

Necrons probably had gender once but they’re now all sexless robots. They do not discriminate based on gender.

Dark Eldar do not discriminate based on gender (I THINK), Males can be Wyches

Warhammer Fantasy is allowed to be sexist really. It’s set in an equivalent period to our late middle ages/early renaissance, where war really was the preserve of men, and that’s reflected in the human armies. Though the Elves, for example, field numerous women.

As for race… well I’d definitely like to see some non-European (style) human armies. Cathay, Araby and others are there in the fluff, but we’ve yet to see any army lists/models :( Not to mention the flagrant discrimination against big-hat Dwarves going on for years until the recent Forgeworld releases. Big hats are legitimate cultural artifacts!

Warhammer Dwarves kind of have grounds to be sexist. they reproduce slowly, are already on the decline, and cant really afford to send any female out to fight. All in all they are a sexist lot, just not maliciously sexist. I could write a massive comment about Dwarven social anatomy & the social structure of a Karak, but i think i should maybe not do that.

I’d go so far as to say with that especially with Relic at the helm of 40K-based games, the universe has been great with empowered female characters. In both lines of the Dawn of War series, Farseers have been depicted as female, as well as the Harlequins in Dark Crusade and the Autarch in Retribution (these roles are non-gender specific), with Lieutenant Mira also being of note in Space Marine. And on the Black Library side of things, Ephrael Stern of the Sisters of Battle is said to be the greatest hope of humanity since the Primarchs.

“Warhammer Fantasy is allowed to be sexist really. It’s set in an equivalent period to our late middle ages/early renaissance, where war really was the preserve of men, and that’s reflected in the human armies.”

I don’t mean to attack your comment specifically, but I think it misses an important point: We can tell stories set in patriarchal cultures that are not inherently sexist. The Handmaid’s Tale and Bujold’s wonderful Paladin of Souls are a couple I recommend.

It’s a shame that there is so much distrust of feminism, driven by anxiety that it aims to censor or prohibit certain settings, themes, and archetypes that we enjoy. But I don’t think it does, not really – it just asks that we be considerate and thoughtful around these subjects.

A good practice is just to highlight female (and non-white) characters who have identities and goals at odds with what is usually associated with their “essential natures”. I.e. develop female characters who are not just the standard intuitive priestess/healer/leader or the lithe and passion-driven warrior woman. Come up with something unique! Isn’t that the point of creativity anyway?

If we look at the real middle ages, women filled a wide variety of roles even while their societies tried to deny them opportunities. All fantasy stories need to do is reflect that basic reality – that women are people who have the ability to be good at things they value and choose to pursue, and that their lives don’t revolve entirely around men and their male-privileging society’s priorities.

A good practice is just to highlight female (and non-white) characters who have identities and goals at odds with what is usually associated with their “essential natures”. I.e. develop female characters who are not just the standard intuitive priestess/healer/leader or the lithe and passion-driven warrior woman.

That depends. Probably, yes, but Games Workshop could’ve given Warhammer fantasy to another developer to use (for better or worse). But given Creative Assembly is farily well known for the Total War series I’m hoping it’ll be Total Waaaagh so to speak. I’d probably prefer a faithful, turn-based representation of the miniature game but a Total Warification could be good, too. Maybe both, even.

I liked the first one, but I really feel that they botched it with 2 and the move to a focus on fast-paced, smaller-unit fights without base building. I want to play a strategy game, not an action game and it just didn’t appeal to me.

As much as I like Relic I’d prefer that someone else take over the franchise now and let them go work on Homeworld 3 or something new and potentially even more awesome.

I just wish THQ would actually bring out some new games rather than trying to sell me the same ones over and over again. I get that you’re in financial trouble, but so am I, and I’m sorry, but I already have everything of yours I want, thanks; why not try releasing something new? Or Homeworld 3, that counts. That I’ll preorder and everything.

This must be Warhammer: Total War, please god let it be this. I don’t know a single person who has not thought “While I can enjoy this faithfully recreated battle between the French and the holy roman empire. I can’t help but feel that the whole experince would be far more enjoyable if the French where rampaging orcish hordes and the Romans had knights riding Griffions.”

I think that’s not what he means. Imagine a war in a Total War game between the French and the HRE.. and then add gryphon knights to the HRE’s ranks and orcs instead of the French.

But yeah. The Empire is basically the HRE, Bretonnia is France, Albion is the UK and Ireland (I think), Estalia is Spain and Tilea is Italy, Norsca is Scandinavia and Kislev is Eastern Europe, I suppose.

I loved Shadow of the Horned Rat, for all its faults. This could be amazing.

I want Bretonnian Knights crashing into ranks of Beastmen in the frozen north, units of Orcs ambushed by skinks in the jungles of Lustria, High Elves in a desperate last stand against skeletal hordes rising out of the ground…

The problem with news like this is that my mind has now gone into overdrive about how awesome Warhammer: Total War would be. It’s already going to be difficult to meet expectations. Just please, don’t try anything too novel. It’s all there for you, the background, the units, the locations and the engine to put it all into. Don’t do something crazy like make a first person shooter where you play a Bright Wizard (actually…), don’t give me control of a single halfling on a quest to buy an expensive ring. If you want to make it turn-based I will be very grateful, but I understand if you don’t. Oh, and good luck. You’re going to need it.

There is a warhammer fantasy mod for medieval 2: total war (kingdoms) in fact. It’s a pretty decent campaign during the time of the chaos storm or something, covering a lot of different races (orcs, vampires, empire, chaos, dwarfs I can remember right now)

Without wanting to sound like a fanboy, I think the problem with a lot of warhammer/40k games is that they haven’t really stuck that close to the original mechanics. I know some mechanics need to change for the transition to a realtime pc game, but surely many people are buying them because they want to play the warhammer mechanics?

Then again, i haven’t played warhammer in decades, so maybe the game is nothing like it once was.

Shadow of the horned rat / dark omen were actually closer to a total war style than a warcraft/starcraft/standard RTS model, so it might work quite well.

I hope they keep a lot of the elements of SOTHR/DO while at the same time giving it a decent interface, AI and making it a lot less frustrating.

Have you played 8th edition? It is quite hideous. The new metagame is focused on creating hordes which are huge units of over 40 models+ , which gain advantages like being practiablly unbreakable. This has in effect created a model arms race as to who can accumalate the most, this translates as GW saying “BUY LOST OF EXPENSIVE USELESS INFANTRY MODELS OR YOU WILL LOSE”

My high elf army disagrees. Bring your hordes into range of my wizards, please do. Hexes and spells that hit every model in a unit take hordes to pieces, as do side charges which are much easier to execute against few large units than many small ones.

8th edition is fine tbh, more fun and balanced than HeroHammer from earlier editions.

Hordes aren’t overpowered at all, since you can just dodge them or rip them to pieces with warmachines and ranged. The real overpowered units are ogres. Their entire army is a big bag of fear immune stomps.

Actually its just a very talented team of consistently successful game developers, seeing as company of heroes and other related IP are owned by THQ. But that’s the whole reason people would want relic, talent, processes and systems.

What makes WFRP special is the concepts of corruption and insanity (either/both of which would eventually lead your character to destruction.) If they incorporate this, I’d find this interesting. Otherwise, just another fantasy license with a salting of steam punk, which everyone’s done to death. (Was unique when Warhammer/WFRP was new.)

Please don’t burn me for saying I will kneel at the feet of Malak if they combine Crusaders kings 2, Chivalry medieval warfare and actual tactics with WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH in one game.

What someone said about already going goggled-eyed with hype? You and me both.

What a shame that THQ still hold the 40k rights. I really, desperately want a proper 40k game made with large armies, not this silly squad-based nonsense. But it’s only going to be fantasy as the better license is wasted on THQ? Shame.

But a proper game of 40K is about playing with small squads of men?…oh wait, ah you must be a 4th ed player. Being able to field an entire company of Space Marines in a 2000pt skirmish is not a proper game.

I really hope XCOM’s success has made someone seriously consider a fully turn-based game. No need to copy Total War, but I’d like to see resource management and unit production tied to the campaign map and not interfering with combat itself.

I think they need to keep the concept of list building with a point system. Maybe have heroes bring a certain amount of “command” value (i.e. points) that allow larger armies. The most fun I have with tabletop Warhammer is trying to put together a cohesive army list that works well in itself, and tweaking it endlessly. If they full on copy Total War, then it becomes more a matter of the traditional pumping out your best units faster than the other guy.

We had bugged The Creative Assembly for A FRIGGING DECADE about doing a FRIGGING NON HISTORICAL game with their FRIGGING AWESOME Total War engine. And all the FRIGGING FORUMERS HAD TOLD US TO BUGGER OFF.

Creative Assembly FRIGGING THANK YOU!

I am going to lie down now a little and stop the hysterical laughter…in about an hour or two.

Although I’ve never gone further in CA Forums than looking at and downloading mods, I am also quite excited about a non-Historical Total War game. A Fantasy Total War. I’m cool with it being WHFantasy, I played a little when younger, but was mainly 40K. I would, perhaps, have preferred to see a different fantasy world… but that’s because I’ve been dreaming at nights about a Malazan Total War since I started reading the books. Or a fresh, newly created world would have worked. But I can be down with WHF.

This is good news in my opinion. I like WHF, I like CA’s output. I’ll be interested to see what they make of this.

Creative Assembly is apparently handing this off to an entirely new team. This, combined with the fact that they have made other games besides strategy ones in the past, has me worried that we could see an attempt at multi-platform money-grabbing (something in the vein of Space Marine). It’s a worst case scenario, but it does make one worry.